Blurring the Boundaries of Environmentalism: The Role of Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society as a Boundary Organization in Northern Conservation Planning

Boundary organizations facilitate the transfer of practical knowledge between scientific and political realms. In the Northwest Territories of Canada the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), an environmental nongovernmental organization (ENGO), increasingly undertakes boundary work as a partner or leading organization in the development of novel arrangements in natural resource management. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted over three years’ participation in working groups for Great Bear Lake watershed management planning and the protection of an Aboriginal cultural landscape, I examine how CPAWS served an atypical ENGO function as a boundary organization. Historically ENGOs in Canada have taken a strong preservationist and anti‐industrial development stance to environmental governance issues. CPAWS, in these contemporary cases, was sensitive to multiple interests and values and assisted in both community and government projects by taking a proactive and participatory role, recognizing the need for community economic development including resource‐extractive industries. At the same time, however, CPAWS strategically promoted its status in other national conservation projects. An indirect outcome is increased perceived efficacy and influence of the boundary organization in larger forums and contexts. CPAWS effectively transformed its historically perceived preservationist, litigious, and watchdog stance to a position as active, positive, and even powerful organizational actor in conservation and development in Canada.